


Availability

by stephanericher



Series: 31 Days of Horoscopes [25]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-09-22 07:23:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9591638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stephanericher/pseuds/stephanericher
Summary: 2/5: Computers and other equipment could go haywire today, limiting your abilities to work at maximum efficiency. Even though you're usually calm and laid back, Aquarius, today the ogre in you may be tempted to emerge. Don't let it. It will only cause tension between you and those around you. Stay calm and focused, call in a technician, and enjoy the break from your routine.





	

**Author's Note:**

> so this 31-day challenge is based on the wonderful [31-Day Horoscope Challenge by @icandrawamoth](http://archiveofourown.org/series/621022). Simply: read your horoscope for the day from horoscope.com (Aquarius for me); use it as a writing prompt.

Hux is in the middle of breakfast when the connection stalls. It’s more than a little inconvenient; he’s only halfway through his regulation-rehydrated meal and his caf is still too hot to drink. This rarely happens; their technology team is top-notch and even when the inevitable errors and delays happen there’s always a backup. Hux sighs, cancels the download, and restarts. It doesn’t even get to one percent by the time he’s finished breakfast and read all the reports he’d had downloaded automatically during the night. He resets the wireless again, waits ten seconds, and restarts the download.

This is absolutely unacceptable; hyperspace or no they need to have working communications lines. Maybe it’s a fault in his datapad; his comlink’s been silent the whole time (unless that’s been taken down too). He flicks it on and dials in the frequency of the technology department; at the very least they’ll be able to send him a new datapad by morning briefings.

“Sir, have you also been affected by the system failure?”

“What do you mean, system failure?” says Hux. “Do we not have backups?”

“Yes, sir, but the main router needs to be replaced. It was overloaded, we believe by a virus, sir.”

“The Resistance?”

“We’re not sure yet, Sir. At the moment, we don’t believe it’s a specifically-targeted malicious attack, but we’re still investigating.”

“How long will it be?” (Yes, there’s a snappish tone to his voice, but it’s not unreasonable to expect this kind of thing to be caught before it takes out everything. Was everyone sleeping on the job? They’re in hyperspace; there’s not much they can do other than plan until they come out on the other end of the galaxy.)

“We’re not sure, Sir.”

“Is the navigational system still up?”

“Yes, Sir. They’re completely separate.”

Well, they probably won’t all crash into a moon at light speed and explode. If Hux were a less patient man, he would have them all demoted to sanitation at the very least. But they’re the only ones with an idea of how to fix this, and as such he’ll have to do a full investigation to find out who is at fault for letting this kind of thing get through (and who had installed such a flimsy set of routers in the first place). But time is wasting; he needs to talk to the senior officers and figure out a plan of action. He summons his droid; it can take care of things for him.

“Call all officers to the bridge.”

“Certainly.”

* * *

It is ascertained quickly that very little work can be done amongst them other than recalculating the navigations, which is already covered. He tells the officers to take a training day and make sure everyone who reports to them is fitting smoothly in the machine that should consist of everyone aboard the _Finalizer_. Hux himself will wait for their reports once the wireless communications are restored (or when they reach their destination and the ship undergoes its probably-now-more-than-routine maintenance). He checks in on some of the divisions; all seems to be going smoothly.

There’s nothing really for him to do, though. The officers are handling their duties; this is the time he’d normally use on strategizing or preparing. He can’t even get online for a strategy game, though, and all the new paperwork is still in the system or on someone else’s local machine. Lovely.

Of course, when he gets back to his room, Ren’s still asleep. Hux has often wondered if there’s some sort of Force shield he puts up when he’s sleeping that blocks out any physical disturbance around him. He’ll probably sleep through the whole thing (though Hux won’t complain if the outage is that short). Hux looks at his datapad; there’s still no signal.

“You’re even more irritated than usual.”

Has he been awake the whole time?

“The wireless is down and I can’t get anything done.”

“You could use a break,” says Ren.

Hux raises an eyebrow. He’s just been asleep for as long as he can allow himself, and regardless of how hard he works or how much he gets done, there’s no place for a long break like this right now when there’s so much that isn’t done. He sits down beside Ren on the bed and taps the datapad, hoping foolishly for a miracle.

“How long’s it going to be?”

“Too long,” says Hux, biting back a grimace.

“You can spend the time on other things,” says Ren.

“Time wasted.”

“Wasted? Really?” says Ren.

Hux sighs. While, yes, he supposes he has time to deal with Ren right now, that doesn’t mean he really wants to get into this kind of argument. He could be spending time with Ren and getting work done, and it’s only going to pile up higher until this issue gets fixed, and even though—especially because—this is out of his hands, it’s making him particularly perturbed.

“Relax,” says Ren.

He leans over, gripping Hux’s wrists, staring up at him. Hux forces himself not to look away from Ren’s eyes, deep and dark and full of a million expressions way more subtle than Ren knows how to actually articulate. This position isn’t really making Hux relax, and he’s quite sure Ren knows that.

“Just,” says Ren. “Just try not to think about it.”

“That’s very helpful,” says Hux.

Ren takes his hands off of Hux’s wrists and props himself up on the bed, leans over, and kisses Hux. His eyes are still open, still staring into Hux’s, and Hux is beginning to feel kind of dizzy and cross-eyed but he’s not going to be the one who yields first. He’s out of breath when Ren finally pulls away, blinking back spots from his eyes, and Ren does not have to look that pleased with himself.

“See?” says Ren.

And then he situates himself between Hux’s legs, and if he asked Hux would concede that he certainly can be distracting when he wants to be.

* * *

The wireless is back up when they’re two hours out; the cause is a stupidly illicit download from one of the recently-promoted junior officers. Hux assigns the appropriate supervisor to take care of him and tells the technicians in no uncertain terms to get better routers installed during maintenance. They take joint responsibility for lack of vigilance, and Hux doubts they’d make the same mistake next time (it’s also too costly to train new technicians, anyway).

Hux isn’t sure if he should be relieved that it’s not a targeted attack or annoyed that something like this could slip through the filters, but it’s not his job to worry about that when his inbox is being flooded and he has to prepare to go planetside and report to Leader Snoke so soon. There are documents to authorize, reports to be made, and strategies to be finalized. (And there’s Ren to placate, but Hux is fairly sure he knows how to take care of that.)

**Author's Note:**

> your feedback is always appreciated!


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